A graphic purportedly showing a statement issued by the Italian Embassy in India, criticising Congress leader Rahul Gandhi over his remarks involving Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, is being widely circulated on social media. The statement allegedly says that while political debate is welcome, disrespect towards the Italian Prime Minister is unacceptable, leading to claims that the Italian Embassy has publicly called out Rahul Gandhi over his remarks.
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NM VERIFIED
NewsMobile verified the claim and found that it is misleading.
The NM team initiated its verification by running a search across the official social media handles of the Italian Embassy in India. We found no such statement or post published by the embassy. A check of the embassy’s official website also yielded no record of the purported statement.
Further examination of the viral graphic revealed that it lacked any official watermark, branding or other identifiable markers associated with the Italian Embassy in India.
We then traced the graphic to an X account operating under the handle @AINga5f and the name “Italy in India.” The account’s bio identifies it as a satire account. In contrast, the official X account of the Italian Embassy in India is @ItalyinIndia, confirming that the two accounts are not the same.
Hence, it is evident that the Italian Embassy in India did not issue any statement criticising Rahul Gandhi over his remarks involving Giorgia Meloni. The viral graphic originated from a satire account impersonating an official embassy account and is fake.
